By Charles Krall

updated 9:18 p.m. ET Aug. 28, 2008

When the Sprint Cup Series first visited Auto Club Speedway in 1997, Jeff Gordon had been a major force in NASCAR racing for just three years. He had won 25 races and was the 1995 series champion before pulling into victory lane in the inaugural event at the two-mile oval just outside of Los Angeles.

Eleven years later, Gordon now has 81 career wins -- sixth all-time -- with three of those coming at Auto Club Speedway. He has won at least two races a year every year since 1994, and he set the modern-era record of most wins in a season with 13 in 1998.

Yet with 24 races complete in 2008, he's still searching for his first win of the season. And his top-five production is off the pace compared to most of his other seasons; he's scored just nine so far in '08.

But one of those top-fives was a third-place run at Auto Club Speedway in February.

With his position in the Chase not locked in -- some might say his chances are precarious as he's ninth in the standings just 108 points ahead of 13th -- a strong run in this Sunday's Pepsi 500 is a must.

"The level of intensity has certainly risen the past few weeks, and there's definitely more pressure," Gordon said. "We have to be sure we're on top of our game. We can't make mistakes and we have to be sure we're doing everything right."

With a chance to race for his fifth series title on the line, Gordon doesn't want to let what the competition is doing affect what his team is doing in the final two "regular season" events.

"We're racing the guys in 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th. If they take a big risk, it may push us into a corner to take a risk," Gordon said. "But that's not our focus. Our focus is -- number one -- to make our car go fast. Secondly, we must run our race and not worry about the other competitors. We shouldn't have to base our decisions on what other teams are doing."

Gordon needs a good finish to solidify his Chase chances, but it's likely the battle for the win will be among the drivers that have dominated victory lane all season. Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards have combined for 14 Sprint Cup wins in 2008, with Edwards winning the February race at Fontana.

Edwards returns to California with a two-race winning streak, having won at Michigan and Bristol.

"It's a fun track and I've had a lot of success there. (We) should be extremely fast out there," Edwards said. "We won there earlier this year and we were in victory lane just a few weeks ago at Michigan, a pretty similar track. We've been fortunate enough to win the last two races in a row, and we'd love to make it three this weekend."

Busch also has had success at Auto Club Speedway. He scored his first series win there in 2005 and has six consecutive top-10 finishes there.

Busch echoes Edwards' sentiments on the track.

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"I like California. You can run all over the place with it," said Busch, who was fourth earlier this season in Fontana. "You can run low, you can run high. And there are plenty of opportunities and areas to pass. I think that the same guys that were fast (in February) will probably be fast there again. Typically there's not any weather that we have to worry about when we get down to that time besides heat."

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